Amnesty International is asking the New Zealand government to create a new humanitarian visa for Pacific people impacted by climate change.

Kiribati community leader Charles Kiata said life on Kiribati was becoming extremely hard as sea levels rose and the country was hit by more severe storms, higher temperatures and drought.

“Every part of life, food, shelter, health, is being affected and what hurts the most is that our people feel trapped. They love their home, but their home is slowly disappearing,” Kiata said.

Crops are dying and fresh drinking water is becoming increasingly scarce for the island nation.

Kiata said in New Zealand, overstayers were anxious they would be sent back home.

“Deporting them back to flooded lands or places with no clean water like Kiribati is not only cruel but it also goes against our shared Pacific values.”

Amnesty International is also asking the government to stop deporting overstayers from Kiribati and Tuvalu, who would be returning to harsh conditions.

Duty of care
The organisation’s executive director, Jacqui Dillon said she wanted New Zealand to acknowledge its duty of care to Pacific communities.

“We are asking the New Zealand government to create a new humanitarian visa, specifically for those impacted by climate change and disasters. Enabling people to migrate on their terms with dignity.”

She said current Pacific visas New Zealand offered, such as the Recognised Seasonal Employers (RSE) and the Pacific Access Category (PAC), were insufficient.

“Those pathways are in effect nothing short of a discriminatory lottery, so they don’t offer dignity, nor do they offer self-agency.”

Dillon said current visa schemes were also discriminatory because people could only migrate if they had an acceptable standard of health.

The organisation interviewed Alieta — not her real name — who has a visual impairment. She decided to remove her name from the family’s PAC application to enable her husband and six-year-old daughter to migrate to New Zealand in 2016.

It has meant Alieta has only seen her daughter once in the past 11 years.

“I would urge all of us to think about that and say, if our feet were in those shoes, would we think that that was right? I don’t think we would,” Dillon said.

Tuvalu comparison
Tuvaluan community leader Fala Haulangi, based in Aotearoa, wants the country to adopt something like the Falepili Union Treaty which the leaders of Tuvalu and Australia signed in 2023.

It creates a pathway for up to 280 Tuvalu citizens to go to Australia each year to work, live, and study.

This year over 80 percent of the population applied to move under the treaty.

Haulangi said the PAC had too many restrictions.

“PAC (Pacific Access Category Visa) still comes with conditions that are very, very strict on my people, so if [New Zealand has] the same terms and conditions that Australia has for the Falepili Treaty, to me that is really good.”

In the past, Pacific governments have been worried about the Recognised Seasonal Employer Scheme causing a brain drain.

Samoa paused scheme
In 2023, Samoa paused the scheme, partially because of the loss of skilled labour, including police officers leaving to go fruit picking.

Haulangi said it’s not up to her to tell people to stay if a new and more open visa is available to Pacific people.

“Who am I to tell my people back home ‘don’t come, stay there’ because we need people back home.”

Dillon said some people will stay.

“All we’re simply saying is give people the opportunity and the dignity to have self-agency and be able to choose.”

Charles Kiata from Kiribati said a visa established now would mean there would be a slow migration of people from the Pacific and not people being forced to leave as climate refugees.

He said people from Kiribati had strengths they could be proud of and could partner with New Zealand.

“It’s a win-win for both of us; our people come to New Zealand to contribute economically and to society.”

RNZ Pacific has approached New Zealand’s Minister of Immigration Erica Stanford for comment.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Dozens of Pacific Islanders and Palagi defied the bitterly cold wind and rain for a peaceful “remember the Dawn Raids” march along Auckland’s Ponsonby Road at the weekend.

The Savali ole Filemu march recognised the anxiety which currently faces overstayers, and the pain still felt from the Dawn Raids.

Tongan community leader Pakilau Manase Lua said coming to New Zealand to improve their lives should not be a crime.

“They took a risk, OK, they broke the law, but so is breaking the speed limit. It’s not a criminal act to come here and try and find a life,” he said.

Holding a photo frame of his late father, Siosifa Lua, Pakilau said they would remember those who had never got justice for how they were treated.

“We came to build this country, and we’re still building this country, and how are we treated? Like dogs!”, he shouted.

‘Those days are over’
“Those days are over. Our children are here. The generations that build this country are here.”

Labour’s Papakura candidate ‘Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki says being an overstayer had personal consequences when her grandfather died in 1977.

“My mother was still an overstayer here, and she had to make a decision … return to Tonga to say farewell to her father, or remain here, for the betterment of the future of her children.”

The government apologised for the Dawn Raids in 2021, and the Labour Party is now promising an amnesty for overstayers of more than ten years, if elected.

But Polynesian Panther activist Will ‘Ilolahia says these political promises are too little, too late.

“We’ve got a deputy prime minister that’s a Pacific Islander, and now they’re bribing our people to vote for them so they can stay in. Sorry, you’ve missed the bus.”

Green Party candidate Teanau Tuiono agrees more should have been done.

“Healing takes time, it takes discussion, and it’s not just something that you can just apologise for and then it ends.

“Yes, the Dawn Raids apology was a good thing, but we also need to have an amnesty for overstayers and pathways for residency. Because let’s be clear, that amnesty could have happened last year.”

Mesepa Edwards says they are continuing the legacy of the Polynesian Panthers’ original members.

“I’m a 21st Century Panther. What they fought for, back in the 70s and 60s, we’re still fighting for today.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The use of “dawn raid” tactics have trampled on Immigration NZ’s “very special relationship” with the Pacific communities, says Māngere MP Aupito William Sio.

The Minister of Immigration, six Pacific MPs and the head of Immigration NZ will meet in South Auckland tomorrow, following the revelation “dawn raid” tactics are still being used in Aotearoa.

“I was appalled, really appalling, I would describe it as Ua soli le mā, (a Samoan saying that roughly translates to ‘you’re trampling on the shame’).

“Meaning the way Immigration are conducting the use of their powers of deportation have trampled on a very special relationship with our Pacific communities of Aotearoa,” said Aupito, the former Minister for Pacific Peoples.

Senior Pacific lawyer Soane Foliaki broke the news, sharing a story of his client who was taken into custody after police knocked on his door in the early hours of the morning, frightening his children.

Aupito believes it is his responsibility to hold Immigration to account with recent events demonstrating there is a complete “lack of cultural intelligence” within the ministry.

“And I think Immigration needs to address that immediately,” he said.

In a statement, an Immigration New Zealand spokesperson said it had launched a review into “out of hours compliance visits” and pressed pause on all such operations until the review had been completed.

Tongan community leader Pakilau Manase Lua is not letting this moment slip by either.

In February this year Prime Minister Chris Hipkins told RNZ Pacific he would look at an overstayer petition that was launched by Pacific community leaders almost three years ago.

To be clear, this was a petition, not just for Pasifika, but for all overstayers in Aotearoa, Pakilau said.

When Hipkins was questioned on whether he would make changes to the government’s policy, he said: “I haven’t had an opportunity to look at that issue yet but I absolutely intend to look at it.”

Three months have passed and no changes have been made.

Pakilau has been fighting for change for years. The people he has been fighting for have legitimate reasons to stay and deserve compassion, he says.

“They might have been here during the lockdowns and they couldn’t go back. Or they were here on a temporary visa and it was difficult to go back due to the eruption,” Pakilau told RNZ Pacific in February.

For him the issue is personal — his uncle Teni is a Dawn Raids survivor.

“Teni was here with us in Auckland during the Dawn Raids of the 1970s as part of a migrant work scheme that brought him and countless thousands here to NZ to do work nobody here wanted to do,” he said.

He remembers his uncle calling from Mount Eden prison to say goodbye as he was deported back to Tonga.

Apology ‘still stands’
Jacinda Ardern humbled herself and apologised for the actions of the government in the 1970s.

For many, finding out similar tactics are still being used is painful and even retraumatising.

Aupito said the stakes were very high, the legacy of a very important apology which in his view “still stands” has been “trampled on” by Immigration New Zealand.

He wants Immigration to take a good hard look at its operations.

“I’m gutted, I’m just gutted that the the Ministry of Immigration does not seem to have understood at all the principles that the Ministry of MFAT are using as guiding principles for engagement; manaakitanga, kaitiakitanga, arohatanga,” Aupito said.

He has spoken with the Minister of Immigration, the new Pacific Peoples Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister who he says all feel the same way.

While Aupito has not spoken with Ardern this week, he has confidence in Michael Wood.

“I have faith that Minister Wood is someone from South Auckland and he understands what is at stake here and he will pursue that,” he said.

Time to front up
Wood and immigration officials will front up tomorrow at a community meeting.

Overstayers are called to turn up and be heard, not to hide in the shadows afraid.

“This is our time, people. Come and have your voices heard in our own backyard of Auckland,” Tongan community leader Pakilau Manase Lua said.

“Don’t worry if you are worried about being an overstayer they need to hear you. Don’t leave it too late. We are here. We stand with you.”

Aupito has a message for the family that lawyer Foliaki acts on behalf of.

“I just apologise to the family for the behaviour of Immigration,” he said.

• The meeting is at 10am, May 6, at 25 Princes Street, Otahuhu.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz